


A Treatise on Intimacy

by MadameReveuse



Category: Star Trek: The Next Generation
Genre: Anal Fingering, Dominant Picard, Feels, Light Angst, M/M, Masturbation, Q invades Picard's privacy again, is it voyeurism? i'm not sure, more Continuum Lore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-08
Updated: 2017-09-08
Packaged: 2018-12-25 10:41:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,653
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12034209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MadameReveuse/pseuds/MadameReveuse
Summary: Q is up to his shenanigans again - this time he decides to snoop around Picard's quarters in order to get to know him better. While he's there, he attempts a little... experiment.





	A Treatise on Intimacy

**Author's Note:**

> The Q evolved from mortals headcanon y/n???
> 
> I have Ideas about what Q was like in the pre-Continuum days, ideas enough for another fic which I'll probably never write. But I picture him as the kind of mortal dude who doesn't really accomplish anything much in life and makes a living in a Billy Joel Piano Man type situation. Hence the pianist line.
> 
> If you enjoyed this, please do leave a comment or kudos!! or hit me up on my tumblr @andsamadams. I live for that Validation

No one saw as Q materialized.

Usually he liked to make a great deal of an entrance when he manifested in his human body, but not this time. This time, his presence on the Enterprise would remain a secret to all aboard.

He had a look around (and how amusing to see with human eyes – one dimension only, one moment in liminal time and space perceived – how limited! How did people _live_ like that?). Picard’s quarters were a picture of order and cleanliness, no interesting messes anywhere. Did the man have no _belongings_ at all?

Q rummaged around the desk at first. It was so tidy as to be almost impersonal – how boring. A few PADDs on the desk contained – Q flicked through the contents within seconds – nothing of interest. Reports, mission logs, all heartrendingly dull. Picard’s personal log had to be around here too somewhere, but Q didn’t want to look into it for now. It was likely to be as stiff and boring as the rest of it…

On the backrest of the desk chair sat a homespun-looking blanket. The pattern was not native to anywhere on Earth – a souvenir, perhaps. Q trailed his fingers over the rough material and absorbed the memories attached to the cloth. Mentally, he chuckled. Picard worshipped as a god by some primitive proto-Vulcans… now _that_ was amusing. Q wished he’d been there – he could have given Picard a tip or two about acting the part of a deity. Currently, fifteen different cultures worshipped him as a god – not that he minded one way or the other – but it was a good thing that all these fifteen planets were far from Federation space. If Picard ever found out, he’d have a fit.

He would certainly react similarly if he knew that Q was in his quarters… that was why he’d just never find out. But this was necessary. The rules of the game prohibited Q from reading Picard’s mind these days, so he had to acquaint himself with this vexing human he had chosen to represent the species in some other way. He reckoned that Picard would frown upon this intrusive method as well, but then again, Q could always be so much more intrusive than this if he so wished. Really, he thought, Picard should consider himself lucky that Q was here and not down on the bridge turning his mind inside out. Q was making some whopping concessions here.

He looked at the books on the shelf next, almost all ancient Earth classics, with some Vulcan and Klingon texts thrown in for variety. In a time where everyone read on PADDs, Picard was sticking to bulky paper books. That was almost endearingly old-fashioned.

On the shelf next to the books rested a little silver box that, when Q opened it, turned out to house a musical instrument. It was a flute, one which was not native to Earth either. Q’s interest was piqued. He had always been under the impression that apart from their adorable time capsule, nothing of the Ressikans remained. How had Picard come to possess this artifact?

He picked it up, absorbing those memories as well. Picard’s encounter with the Ressikan probe touched him oddly – he had unlearned feeling sorrow for things that faded. For him as a nonlinear being, nothing was ever really gone, and besides… mortals died. That was just what they did. They were dying all over the place in this very moment – as Q stood here, he knew that in the vast universe out there, a million stars were blinking out of existence, tens of thousands of them populated with some kind of life. If the Q were to try grieving for all of them, the whole Continuum would constantly be awash with tears and nothing would get done.

But at least Picard wasn’t dying, not now, not yet, not ever if Q got his way. And he usually did.

The more recent memories connected to the flute were quiet and serene: Picard practicing his tunes in his free time. Q found it strangely enjoyable to listen to the human play his instrument. He could see how it calmed and centered Picard, so he felt a bit calmed and centered by proxy. There were also memories of a woman and a portable piano, few of them, but poignant. Q felt jealous in the strangest way. He was aware that while Picard was no Will Riker, he had scattered sexual encounters every now and again, and why shouldn’t he? Let the man have some sex, Q opined, it loosened him up a little. But this sharing of music was intimate in another way, an emotional, soul-baring way. Whoever this woman was, Q was glad she wasn’t in Picard’s life anymore. A stray memory of his own nudged him, having just emerged from under five billion years’ worth of recollection debris: a long, long time ago, before the dawn of the new era, before the Continuum had become… well, had become the Continuum, when he’d been someone else, he had been a passable pianist himself. He had never ascended past passable, despite ascending in so many other ways – there had been a universe to explore, and then he’d just stopped caring. But wasn’t it tempting to snatch that woman from those memories and plant himself there…?

Q laughed at himself. He wouldn’t disclose the Continuum’s most treasured secrets just for a musical duet with Picard, and besides, he probably didn’t even know his way around a piano anymore. Those memories, too, belonged to someone else, some person quite buried now. He put the flute down and headed to his Captain’s bathroom.

He found nothing very interesting there, but he fiddled with a toothbrush for a moment in mild astonishment. There also were a razor and shaving foam, which smelled delicious (like the faintest whiff of a scent he caught whenever he leaned in to whisper in Picard’s ear, but so much more potent), but when he licked it, it wasn’t tasty. Humans! All those absurd little rituals they relied on!

He had saved the bedroom for last, actually feeling the thrill of the illicit when he walked to the door. He had been in here before, of course, even with Picard present in nothing but his little blue pajamas, but in a way it was almost more intimate to be here alone, free to look around without exposing himself to Picard’s disapproval.

Q circled the bed, not sure where to start. It was the same as in the living room: there were only very sparse signs that someone lived here at all. It really was amusing, such an unnecessarily spartan lifestyle on this luxury liner of a spaceship… Q could barely withstand the impulse to bounce on the mattress.

Naturally, his mind filled this space with Picard, doing whatever humans did in their bedrooms. Picard getting out of bed in the mornings, that compact powerful body stretching. Picard perfunctorily stripping off his uniform to get into bed in the evenings. Picard in bed sleeping or reading or… what other things did humans do in bed? They dozed. They copulated. They bounced on the mattress, although Q reckoned Picard wouldn’t be doing that. They pleasured themselves.

_Oh come now_ , said a part of Q, but the rest of him was invested. With his Q imagination, it was easy to create a mental image of Picard here, on the bed, that supple body in its stark nudity exposed to the light of the stars beyond the sloped window, all the more enticing because Picard was so buttoned up normally. To picture him all by himself and stealing a moment of indulgence, with his hand between his legs caressing himself, in his beautiful mind that delicious commingling of subtle shame and rapture which the humans called _guilty pleasure_ … and he’d probably have his eyes squeezed shut, his lips slightly parted, his shapely muscles flexing unconsciously with the sensation… not moaning, not quite, only stifled gasps for our stalwart captain. Q couldn’t help making a sound of his own, deep down in his throat. He sat down on the bed, as the silly human body he’d created chose this moment to get a little weak in the knees.

Human arousal was really quite ridiculous, he mused, and so was human genitalia. Q had of course outfitted himself with what had vaguely felt like the correct set at the time, for the sake of authenticity, but it wasn’t like he had ever _minded_ it at all. He hadn’t really _considered_ the penis. It always just dangled there, completely superfluous.

With Picard, however, that was probably quite a different matter. Q reckoned that somehow, that man would even make that stupid-looking reproduction tube look graceful and powerful and _delectable_ and Q wanted to reach into his own imagination and touch.

But what was he _doing_ , sitting here in someone’s bedroom, all but salivating over these images like some sexual _deviant?_ He groaned and buried his nose in a soft pillow.

Perhaps here was where he could reach equilibrium. The pillows, comforter and sheets were all pleasantly soft and the scent emanating from them was exquisite. The entire room smelled faintly like this but here it was most pronounced. Of course, it was Picard, he was here every day and certainly every night, the room smelled like him. But this was simply heavenly. Q could picture himself spending the next hundred years comfortably with his face in this pillow just inhaling.

He was really in deep, a detached part of himself realized. That scent, and being here on the bed and these pictures still occupying the front of his mind all stoked some sensation like a growing fire in his corporeal form, which of course he meticulously severed from his mind. Sitting up, he realized what was happening: his body had quite simply elected to become aroused. Of course he couldn’t fault the poor primitive thing, under these circumstances. He looked down at his arousal jutting out from him, tenting the front of his pants, and tittered a little, because it looked funny. He poked it with his finger, just at the tip, and there was a feeling like a shower of sparks coursing all through him.

Of course he still observed this detachedly, as it wasn’t really happening to him, but merely to his flesh vessel. He was safely ensconced behind the natural barrier of his powers. Safely? Safe from what? It wasn’t like he was _hiding_ from these feelings, it just… it didn’t do to mix these things up. The Q didn’t do it. They had _transcended_ these things. But from the ever-curious part of his mind, a thought emerged. Just how would it be to let himself feel this like a human man would? And just why wasn’t he doing that? Humans were having sex constantly, and the majority of them experienced it as very pleasant. What if he was missing out? It didn’t do to miss out on something when he, by the very nature of his being, could and should have everything.

A part of Q reminded the rest that it was unwise to try this here and now. Who knew when Picard would come back from his shift? But then again, he was only going to lower his barriers for one tiny moment, just to see what it was like…

Carefully, he permitted his hold on those primitive human sensations to evaporate. Just for one tiny moment. Just for one—

_“Oh, shit,”_ he actually hissed, as he was suddenly, violently, overcome with feelings. _This_ was what human arousal was like?! This was almost like pain…

But it was somehow good pain, if this strange oxymoron could be permitted, he thought as he groaned at the feel of all that blood rushing through his heavy, aching, dripping cock. Was it supposed to shed fluid like that? He didn’t know. All he knew was that this, the increased sensitivity, the heat of his skin (it was odd to even think, _his skin, his body_ ), the edge as his cock rubbed against his pants, it all felt so goddamn _good_.

He tilted his head back and bit his lips as he palmed himself without really even noticing what he was doing. Inhaling deeply, that scent hit him again, dizzying now. Picard… he was touching himself on a bed that smelled like Picard. Q laughed, a breezy little thing.

But his need was growing urgent. Caressing that bulge in his pants brought a sort of relief, but not enough. He needed the contact of skin on skin. Yes, and why not here… on the bed… bring this to a conclusion…

_No_ , said the part of him that was still above and apart and very much Q. What he really needed to do was to get a grip, dematerialize and return to the Continuum. This was Not For Him. He was very much _not_ supposed to do this. And yet he couldn’t conceive stopping right now. He was too tangled in this, too caught up in his human body that felt things so deliciously.

He didn’t even undress. He just snaked a hand into his pants and gripped his cock at its base. Oh, that was good. Experimentally, he moved his fist up the shaft, then down again. A little whimper escaped him. The motion begged to be repeated, so he did, upping the speed of his strokes a little, falling into a rhythm. He wanted to writhe with pleasure. His surroundings, the circumstances, all became unimportant. There was only his body’s demand for release, and the beautiful images his mind generated of Picard, here on this same bed, sprawled out in such a way, pleasuring himself just as Q was doing now…

 

* * *

 

Jean-Luc knew something was amiss the moment he entered his quarters. Something was not as it ought to be, was different from when he’d left his rooms in the morning. There was something strange in the air, there was… someone or something else in here with him. The Captain was no empath, but he was sure that this was what Troi felt when she said she _sensed a presence._

His living space seemed empty so far, so he crossed the room and proceeded to the bedroom. Picard wasn’t in the habit of sharing his space with anyone, so the prospect of someone in there held a private little dread. Of course he had nothing to hide in his bedroom specifically; if an intruder had taken an interest in his restricted mission logs or access codes, now _that_ would have been worrying. He wasn’t hiding any of those things in his nightstand, though.

Maybe, he thought as he snuck towards the door, he was being paranoid. They had been on yellow alert for parts of the day, having been warned of a possible Romulan incursion in this sector, only to find no Romulans and no one else really. The day had put them all on edge. Still he wished he had a phaser with him. But it was probably nothing…

And then…

It was not nothing.

Picard absolutely froze in the doorway, gawking unprofessionally at a sight he really hadn’t expected to see. But then, what was a professional reaction to entities in your bed?

Well, it was just one entity. Q hadn’t noticed him yet. He was completely focused on what he was doing, his eyes closed, his lips slightly parted. Gorgeous lips.

Picard shook his head. He had been well aware for quite some time that Q was most likely attracted to him. He’d never let it show that he knew, intending to keep this ace up his sleeve for a while yet. Maybe, he’d thought, he’d never have to play it. But the knowledge that he had this one advantage over Q kept him warm at night when sometimes everything seemed so futile. But now Q had thrown him one enormous curveball, turning up here and… and playing around with himself in Jean-Luc’s damn bed!

It was outrageous. It was disgusting! He should have screamed the moment he laid eyes on this appalling display. He should be yelling right now. He should be throwing the entity out in grand style. Somehow he wasn’t.

Because Q hadn’t even _noticed_ him yet. Q was so _intent_ on what he was doing. This was probably the first time Q was trying anything related to human sex. Why it was happening here and now, Picard had no idea. He suppressed a sigh.

Q was making little straining noises now quite nicely. To his considerable surprise, Jean-Luc felt his own body respond.

“Oh,” Q moaned, really half a sob. “Oh, Picard… Picard…”

“Yes,” Picard said, putting all his steely authority into the one small word.

He was rewarded with Q’s eyes flying open, a picture of mortification. So this had not been staged for him to see. He had caught Q at something, something Q hadn’t intended to ever be caught doing. He half expected to be thrown out into space, just for witnessing that horrified look in Q’s eyes, but the entity just kept staring at him. A few excruciating seconds dragged.

“What is this, Q?” Picard asked, watching the entity’s chest rise and fall with rapid breaths.

“Experiment,” Q gasped. “For science.” Rise. Fall. Risefall.

“In _my_ bed?” the Captain chided.

“Nowhere else.” Risefall. And again.

Picard tsked. “You’re not even doing it properly.” He was trying to give his voice all the aloof derision he was capable of. Which was quite a lot. He was a Frenchman.

Q blinked at him. “What?”

Picard walked briskly over to the replicator and punched in a number, positioning himself so that Q couldn’t see it. When the replicator had produced what he had wanted, he tossed it squarely at the entity. It collided with his chest and bounced off and onto the bed.

“What’s this?” Q asked, on high alert but still not moving. For a fleeting moment, Picard had the upper hand. He was acting in a way that Q didn’t expect and he had to seize this moment before Q regained his hold on the situation – or simply flashed out.

“It will help us later,” he non-explained. “Q… take your clothes off.”

A second of breathless silence. Then, “ _Excuse_ me?”

“Take your clothes off. All your clothes. Now. No, please don’t snap – leave your hand where it is.”

Q didn’t snap. He was just, suddenly, naked.

“Good,” Picard said, and meant it. “Lie back on the bed now. Yes, just so.”

Q followed the order, clearly too bewildered to object or even ask for a reason. He just stared, questions upon questions in his widened eyes. Lord, it was so good to see him like this for _once_.

“Well?” Picard asked in his best Captain voice. “Aren’t you going to finish what you started?”

_“What?”_

Picard forcibly exhaled through his nose, putting on an overt display of exasperation. “What? What? Is that all I’m going to get from you this time around? You’re not usually that slow on the uptake.” Damn it all, he was enjoying this. He continued in that slow, drawn-out way people talk to children or very dim people. “Move your hand up the shaft. Then down. Then up again. Then down again. Come on, you were doing perfectly fine a minute ago.”

Q still gaped at him, but his left hand followed Picard’s instructions as if compelled to. “What… you…”

“Go on. Like this. Twist your wrist a little on the next upstroke. Yes, just like that. How does that feel?”

“Oh…” Q sighed, his eyes falling shut.

“Good, no?” Picard asked in that warm but firm voice he used when briefing new ensigns. “Down again, Q. A little harder this time.”

Q whimpered.

“Now I want you to move your hand down and cup your testicles like so,” Picard instructed, raising a hand to illustrate.

Q spread his legs a little further apart as he mirrored the gesture, putting himself even more atrociously on display. Picard could plainly see his erection as it bobbed, neglected for the moment, and well, this was right up there with the weirdest sexual activities he’d ever indulged in with anyone, and he hadn’t even touched Q yet.

“I want you to tell me what feels good and what doesn’t,” he told the entity.

Q frowned as if in deep concentration. “Mmmh. This feels nice. Not as good as touching the tube thing. But nice.”

“Very well. Do you remember the little jar I tossed you? It’s right there next to you. Can you reach it? No by all means, use the right hand.”

Q’s non-dominant hand, the one that wasn’t fondling his balls, shot out and gripped the thing. He popped the jar open and examined the contents, his brows furrowing.

“There’s some sort of gel in here.”

“Yes, and I expect you to use it.”

He had Q put some lube into the palm of his left hand and stroke his cock like this, and listened to Q’s appreciative noises. He had Q scoop up some more of it and draw a glistening path around his balls, along his perineum and to his hole.

Q giggled. “You want me to stick my finger in _there_?”

Picard hummed in the affirmative. “What’s so funny about that?”

Q shifted a little with suppressed laughter. “Well… don’t humans…?”

“Yes, but _you_ don’t.”

“Eurgh. Of course not.”

“Fine then, do as I say. You have to take it slow. Don’t put it in quite yet, circle the opening until it relaxes a little.”

“You’re trying to humiliate me… mmh, no wait, that’s not so bad…”

“Trust me. You’re going to need more lubricant now. Very well, insert your index finger, slowly, carefully.”

Q’s face scrunched up endearingly as one slick finger slid inside his hole, just the tip at first, then all of it. When his whole finger was submerged inside, his eyes blinked open and he looked at Jean-Luc, the beginnings of a puzzled frown on his handsome face.

“Is this bad for you?” Picard asked. After all, he knew that not all men liked this sort of thing, and this entity…

“It’s… strange,” Q reported back. “But… maybe not a bad sort of strange.”

Jean-Luc was oddly relieved. He wanted Q to like what he was showing him. “Well then you can move a little, in and out like so. You should feel your muscles relax a little more.”

Q lost the frown as he got some semblance of a rhythm going, his breath now coming in short pants. Picard shifted a little to get a better view on him, as the spectacle on his bed was doing all sorts of things to his own arousal. For crying out loud, he was already half-hard. Never had he ever fathomed that his body could react to Q like this. His own voice came out darker, smoother, somehow, when he asked, “How is it, Q?”

Q made an inarticulate little noise, half a groan and half a grunt. “Feels good.”

“That’s all?” Jean-Luc teased gently. “Come now, Q, you’re usually all talk.”

“I’d like some more,” Q volunteered.

“Try getting your middle finger in.”

Soon enough, a second finger joined the first one, and Q shifted a little on the bed, though not in discomfort. “Oh, that’s better.”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying yourself,” Picard said wryly. Q had to be feeling the slightest bit of a stretch, now, and judging from his reaction, he was loving it. “Scissor your fingers.”

“Scissor?”

“Like this.” He demonstrated with his own hand again.

Q complied, and then again unprompted, and then a third and fourth time, a deep, throaty hum of pleasure escaping him. Jean-Luc observed the barely-suppressed trembling of Q’s body, the way the entity did not, could not allow his head to bend, his back to arch, or his eyes to shut for more than a second. Even though he was flat on his back, he kept his head raised in what had to be an uncomfortable position in order to be able to meet Picard’s eyes. As if he couldn’t take his eyes off the human for fear of what would happen if he didn’t remain vigilant. Too much tension. Too much distrust. Not enough mindless, heedless ecstasy.

“My dear,” he said, (and where had _that_ come from?), “will you please crook your fingers and… there’s a spot there, a small gland, which you should find…”

“I know it’s there,” Q panted, almost offended. How dare Picard assume that he didn’t know every inch of the mortal hull he was wearing? “Don’t know what it’s for.”

Jean-Luc felt himself smile again. “Just try and touch it, you’ll see what it’s for.”

Q did as he was told, crooking his fingers and searching, making some pretty moans that were mostly for his audience, and then—

\--his moan turned into a high-pitched little whine, his eyes wide, his mouth a perfect O of surprise. For a fraction of a second, he looked frozen, caught in the moment of his fingertips brushing his prostrate for the first time.

Then finally his back arched, his eyes closed, the back of his head hit the pillow as he fell to stroking the tiny gland with abandon.

Picard chuckled. “Listen to you, my dear. You’re _mewing!_ ”

“Does it matter… aahh… what noise I’m making?” Q gasped. “Come over here already.”

“I don’t think so,” Jean-Luc said with a smile.

“But I want you to…”

“And you always get what you want, huh, Q?” He was trying for his stern voice, the one that made Worf quiver in his boots if need be. “Now look here. The way I see it, you decided to come onto my ship, you decided to break into my quarters and _you_ decided to use my bed for some highly inappropriate experimentation. I should have thrown you out of here the minute I laid eyes on you. And yet I chose to be patient with you, to excuse your crass misbehavior, even to show you how to pleasure yourself. And you think I will indulge you endlessly? You think I owe you even a single touch?”

Oh, he was having _fun_ with this. To lecture Q as if he was some impudent cadet, and to have Q actually listen…

Q sighed. “Yes, yes, I have been oh so very naughty. But look…” He spread his legs, showcasing himself obscenely, two fingers still up his ass, his cock flushed and dribbling, the shimmer of lube everywhere. “This is all for you. All of me, all for you. Come take me. Come have me.”

It took all of Picard’s iron will to hide that this view, and every word Q said, went straight to his cock. He was fully hard now. Soon he would be aching to touch himself. But not yet. For now, he made it seem as if it was the easiest thing in the universe to just ignore Q’s plea.

“Can you get a third finger in there, what do you think?” he asked, in a tone as if he was talking about the weather.

“I… yes…” Q groaned as he slipped the third digit inside. His pace had slowed to a stuttering crawl. _It’s his first time,_ Picard reminded himself.

“You’re doing very well,” he muttered, an audible caress.

Q took this in with a blissful smile. His other hand came up to his dick and curled around it, starting up a lazy pumping motion.

“Have I told you to do this yet?” Picard asked sharply.

Q froze, and breathed, a shaky exhale. “N-no.”

“Then don’t.”

Q’s eyes opened, and they were not green, not brown, but pure black, with speckles deep within the iris like far distant stars. The universe. A glittering challenge. Space, the final frontier.

“Don’t what?” Q asked.

Now it was Picard’s turn to sigh through his nose. “Your right hand. Put it down and onto the bed.”

“What if I don’t want to?”

Honestly Picard was not surprised. He had expected Q to counter him much earlier.

He put all his authority into his voice. “Put. It. Down.”

All of a sudden, Q melted.

“But I _have_ to,” he whined. “I _need_ to… don’t you under _stand?”_

“I understand that you’re being contrary for no reason,” Picard chided.

“Oh please, Jean-Luc, I’m _begging_.” Q was beginning to sound desperate. “You see, there is this… edge… and it’s all building up and… oh, why won’t you _touch_ me?” He added some small tears for good measure, probably fake.

Jean-Luc deliberated this. He could simply walk over there and finish Q off, but it would feel like a forfeit. Like he was handing the game back to Q. He could let Q finish himself off, which would also feel like a forfeit, but less so. And when had he started thinking of this in Q’s terms anyway, as a game? His own thoughts suddenly annoyed him.

“Fine,” he said in a clipped manner, “You may do with your hands whatever you wish.”

Q uttered a long sigh of – what was it? Relief? Satisfaction? Surprise? Disappointment? Hurt? Longing? Maybe a bit of all of this.

He palmed his cock with his right hand, while the left remained fingering his hole. His moans started sounding urgent as he got a rhythm up again, timing the strokes of his left hand with those of his right. His eyes were squeezed shut again.

“This is you,” he whispered. “This is you… touching me… and you’re here… with me, you’re here…”

“I am here,” Picard said somewhat ambivalently.

“Oh!” Q sobbed and came, suddenly, visibly taken by surprise as semen spurted out and dripped down the shaft and over his hand.

Picard didn’t know what he had expected – fairy dust? A rupture in space-time forming right here in his bedroom? But apparently what emerged from Q was nothing but normal, human cum. However, it did look especially like it wanted to be licked off his body. Like it would be delicious. The few times in his life that he had experienced it, Jean-Luc hadn’t liked the taste – sharp and bitter as it was. But it seemed unthinkable that anything coming from Q could be that vile and repulsive to the taste.

His own neglected erection twitched. What was he to do about it?

Post-orgasm, most people tended to sprawl, relax. Q curled into himself instead, assuming an almost protective pose. His face was turned away from Picard. He looked… vulnerable. Picard reminded himself that that was nonsense, that Q could not be harmed by conventional or perhaps any means. But he couldn’t help but feel… disappointed. He had hoped for Q to be… pliant, serene, for once, not whatever this was.

He wasn’t sure what to say, what to do. Was the game over? Had he won this round? His mind suspected yes, his erection, that still hadn’t been tended to, clamored no. Q had gotten an orgasm in, while Jean-Luc’s cock hadn’t even received so much as a cursory touch.

Q stirred, casting an almost furtive look over his shoulder at Picard.

“Something the matter, Q?” It was as good a thing to ask as any.

“Why didn’t you just come over here?” He sounded… annoyed. But also a tad confused, and maybe even sad, for some strange reason.

“You seemed to be doing fine on your own.”

“You don’t understand.” Q pouted. “This was so pointless. Redundant. I abhor redundancy.”

Picard shrugged. “You enjoyed yourself, didn’t you?”

Q shifted uncomfortably. “At first. It was never meant to go this far, but I thought… that you were talking to me, telling me what to do… would be enough. But then it wasn’t. I needed you to touch me, to really share something with me.”

Perhaps it was time to tease some more. “Maybe another time,” Picard said.

“Now. Please!” Q actually made grabby hands, his entire being pure yearning. “I can’t stand it anymore, being alone in this human form. I really can’t. Touching my own skin, it was fun at first, but then, being a singular entity, having a distinct shape, _having skin_ … it feels rubbery and weird. And getting myself to orgasm… there was no point to it. It was just myself. It was lonely.”

“I was right here the entire time.”

“Yes, but you weren’t _touching_ me! Why is it… do I disgust you so much?”

Q coiled up even tighter, and Picard’s brow furrowed. This didn’t seem like just another one of Q’s temper tantrums. This was beginning to look awfully like a meltdown. Why hadn’t he noticed this sooner? Had he misread this entire encounter?

“Q, I’m afraid I don’t quite understand,” he said carefully. “I’m assuming we’ve happened upon yet another difference between our two cultures, or the two of us as people, because it appears I’ve somehow…”

_…hurt you…_

_(but no, even if that was the case, Q still was a prideful creature)_

“…given offense, which was unintentional, and I want to make up for my ignorance.”

Q huffed a little laugh. “How very diplomatic of you.”

“I’d just like you to explain, if you can. You see, personally I didn’t expect you to react so negatively to an activity I would have thought to be relatively innocuous…”

“To humans, maybe!”

Ah.

So it _was_ a Q thing.

“Understand this, if you can,” Q continued, “I am not… as you see me. Well, not only. You’re perceiving me as a human-like entity with scary powers, one being, Q singular. But I am a part of a whole. Strictly speaking, _Q_ is not my name, it’s a species descriptor. Like _Human_ , or _Romulan_. And perhaps that’s all there is, perhaps there’s really only Q plural. _We_ are Q.”

Q took a shaky breath, and Picard wondered just who and what this creature on his bed really was. A representative? An interface? An upgraded, fancy version of a Borg drone?

“And understand further,” Q went on, “that everything I do, everything I feel, everything I experience and think in my own form is shared with all my siblings, always. It is what I am. It is what we are. It’s what being Q means. We have no use for aloneness. But you shared nothing with me. You left me here alone with my flesh body and you didn’t even touch me.”

“Didn’t you like touching yourself at least a little bit?”

“I’m not even supposed to do things like that! I like _you_. I was thinking of you, and my… _body_ reacted. It was disturbing!”

“Your body disturbs you?”

“Right now it does. Usually I don’t have any feelings about it one way or the other.”

Picard was astonished. “But you chose that body yourself. I thought you at least liked it.” In truth, he had always pegged Q as a full-on narcissist. To hear him speak of his chosen form with such derision was almost jarring.

“My appearance corresponds to facets of my being in a way which… I won’t get into right now,” Q explained. “I could have made myself a body that was… more attractive or more intimidating or stronger or whatever, but it wouldn’t have been as authentic, and therefore not as comfortable to me. I reckoned I was going to spend a considerable amount of time in this shape, dealing with you, and thus I opted for comfort over aesthetics. I found myself… regretting that on various occasions.”

There were about half a dozen ways in which Picard could have reacted to this, some diplomatic, some reassuring.

“But you’re beautiful,” he blurted out.

There was a bewildered little silence.

Then Q asked, “What do you mean?”

_I can’t stand this any longer_ , Jean-Luc thought. A few deft strides and he was beside the bed, kneeling down on the mattress, putting a soothing hand on Q’s shoulder. Q’s whole body twitched, but as Picard continued touching him, stroking up and down his arm, his shoulder, his spine, Q leaned into the touch like a flower towards sunlight.

“Don’t you _know_ how attractive you are?” Jean-Luc asked gruffly. “How you’ve been driving me crazy every time you came here, that mouth of yours, those eyes of yours, that… everything about you?”

“Oh, Jean-Luc, I bet you say that to all the boys.”

“No, I don’t. And I don’t let just anybody into my bed either.”

“You didn’t _let_ me in here, I just materialized here. Oooh, touch me more. Do you want to stick your cock in me?”

Picard spluttered. “Excuse me?”

“You heard me.” Q shrugged. “My body feels all empty now that my fingers aren’t in my hole anymore. Is it not the custom for certain human males to…?”

“Yes, yes. But…” Picard gestured to where his erection had completely wilted away as he had listened to Q’s agonizing.

Q pouted. “Oh please. I’m so nicely prepared for you now. Won’t we get to share in each other at all? Look…” He scooped up some of the sticky mess covering his abdomen and licked it. Picard’s cock twitched, but that was all.

“I’m sorry. At my age and all that…”

Q sighed idly. “Then play your little flute for me.”

Picard’s hands, busy with touching Q all over, stilled. “My flute? Why?” He felt abashed at the thought of sharing this with Q. Playing the flute was something he considered very emotionally intimate, and while he practiced whenever time allowed, he did not consider himself a _brilliant_ flutist. Q would probably laugh at him.

“I know it’s intimate and stuff.” Was Q reading his mind? He hoped not. He wasn’t ready for _that_ kind of intimacy. Maybe he’d never be, after the Borg. “I know you don’t share this lightly. It would _mean_ so _much_ , come onnnnn.”

“You appreciate music?” Picard asked, hoping to derail Q’s request.

“Oh, I _very much do_ ,” Q breathed, scooting closer.

Picard chortled. “I bet you’ve mastered every instrument in the known universe.”

“No.” Q looked at him with wide, serious eyes. Then he blurted out, “The Q evolved from mortals.”

Jean-Luc sat very still and tried to act like it didn’t faze him that he’d just been told what was probably a fiercely guarded secret of the Q Continuum. Sure, he had suspected something like this. Q had dropped one or two very heavily veiled hints to this. But hearing it said, just like that…

Q wasn’t finished. “I used to play a local approximation of the piano, back when I… but that was a long time ago and I barely even remember. I expect I’m no good at it now. But please, will you… like with that science officer I saw in your past? Will you let me in like that?”

At some level, Picard understood what Q was trying to convey. He would not laugh or mock or condescend. He understood what this would mean. He wanted them to be close in more than sexual ways. A _fancy Borg drone?_ What had he been _thinking?_

“Wait here,” he said and fetched the Ressikan flute.

When he came back with it in his hands, he simply kicked off his boots and sat on the bed, where Q immediately nestled into his side. He fit there as if both their bodies had been custom-made for this. Jean-Luc raised the flute to his mouth and played, a simple, sweet melody, one from that other life he had once lived. Q hummed and seemed to almost glow with content. No, not just almost. There was a warm, golden sheen permeating from the entity, like a very faint halo.

Jean-Luc lowered the flute. “You’re definitely glowing.”

Q squirmed a little, as if embarrassed. “Who’s glowing? I’m glowing? Nonsense. Play again.”

And Jean-Luc did.


End file.
